Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: tallulah on January 17, 2011, 22:52
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I'm keen to get some salad leaves on the go. I've read on my seed packs that they are ok to be sown year round for windowsills. However, I'm a bit cynical - will there really be enough light at this time of year? Has anyone had any success?
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There's plenty of sprouting seeds you can do on a windowsill at this time of year. I've got cress and salad rape on the go and they make a nice addition to a sandwich. I don't normally sow any 'proper' veg indoors before February but you could give it a go. All you lose is a few seeds.
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bit skeptical. Last year I sowed all year round windowsill baby leaf salad in feb and got the whole sowing leggy. (tried with reflecting foil backing).
tried one set again in march to fetch two table spoons of salad. and the proper ones outside were doing better.
I started thinking that I dont have green fingers for salad leaves but proved myself wrong with a hanging basket salad bounty. :)
better to wait until march unless you have good light and good indoor temperatures.
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I think it's too warm indoors, (most houses anyway) for salad crops to grow properly, let alone the light problem.
For me, even outside, I don't sow radish much into May, as they bolt due to the warmth, standard lettuce sown beyond June have a very erratic germination.
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I have some in the unheated conservatory (I have some plastic troughs with a nice little water reservoir at the bottom) that I sow in succession. I keep them in the house to germinate, and then move them to the conservatory - which I guess has much better light than a windowsill, and the plants probably grow more slowly because it is cooler.
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I do salad leaf mixtures in the unheated greenhouse, for me and the chooks, so they always have something green to eat. This morning they had corn salad which has come through the winter snows and freezing temperatures unscathed. The kitchen is just too hot. A coldframe in good light would be ok.
I like the oriental leaf mixes which I think would be fine for sowing now. You only need a row a fortnight across the width of a seed tray. The Italian leaf mix Misticanza is very good too and seems to thrive in cold conditions.
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Thanks everyone! I'll try a limited selection in the unheated greenhouse.
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I've tried an oriental mixture this winter in a cold frame, and they've come out very leggy. Might try and cloche a row on the plot in a few weeks to see if I can get some early leaves.
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How about a compromise if you don't have a frost free conservatory? In Lidl you can get a really dense pack of growing leaves, not ideal but if you are really hankering to grow and pick something, at 89p they are worth a try. :unsure: They keep going a while before getting leggy (depending on how much you neen of course! ::))